Beat the Main story of Ultimate Ninja Storm 3!

tl;dr:Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is a
fighting game, and may just be my favorite fighting game in the last
5 years..

I’ve just recently completed my first run through of the main story of
this game, Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst.

Long title, I know.

Anyway, I have to say that this game is probably my favorite fighting
game of the last 5 years. It is innovative in a few crucial ways while
not sacrificing accessibility or gameplay, and it does it all in a
very tight and engaging package.

It has a large amount of characters which all play differently, and
the standard game is played with one main and two supporting
characters, allowing for a very large amount of versus
matchups. Characters has references to the story worked into the
gameplay itself, and not just into the story of the game… As in, a
character who is slow plays slow, a character who focuses on items or
melee is designed to be focused on that, and every character has a
mode where they will break away from the way most other characters
play.

To digress for a second: Yes, it is a Naruto product. And no, even if
You are not a fan of the series, it does not suck. No familiarity
with the story is needed to enjoy the game, as any needed backstory is
well represented within it. You will not be at a true disadvantage
versus someone really interested in the series, provided You play the
game enough to learn the rules and characters as You would have to do
with any other fighting game.

Fights are done in an arena style battlefield with a dynamic
camera. For 1 vs 1 battles (all versus matches and most story matches)
the camera works absolutely wonderfully. There are a few points in the
story when You fight “6 vs 2” battles (which is in quotes because it
is really 6 vs 1 + 1 support) or have beat’em up style dungeons to
walk through. The camera isn’t horrible then, but You may have to
use that right stick more often in these few segments.

As for the combat itself: Instead of a combo-based move list like many
games in the fighting genre, this game created a large amount of
different kinds of commands. This makes for less memorization of combos
(Ex. Quarter Circle Forward, A, Down, Back, B) and more a
memorization of abilities (Ex. The Second Mizukage has many good
projectile attacks, and if he is cornered should back away as soon as
possible). However, this is different from most fighting games, so I
will clarify a few things about the control:

You can still do a minimum of three melee combo strings per character,
but You can also: “throw” enemies, which really results in a move
which throws the enemy away from You; use two different kinds of
special move (Jutsu) which, provided they hit the enemy, play out in a
cutscene; throw projectiles which will stop an enemy for a split
second, breaking their commands or wasting their abilities; call upon
support from one of two team mates, who will either continue a combo
for You, hit an enemy with a special move, or (provided You have
filled a certain bar) gang up on Your enemy in a high-damage cutscene
where You all three juggle Your opponent, finishing with Your
strongest single move; Use three dimensional movement to dance around
the battlefield, able to dodge most attacks but unable to really do
damage, as a way to change the distance between You and Your opponent.

There are more commands, but this is already really long, so I’ll move
on.

The story is decent, though if You really cannot stand Naruto, then
every story cutscene is skippable, and will not cause the game to be
unplayable. It is worked into the game very well, and I can easily
say I would play through it again: They have a few very interestingly
different situations which occurred in the story, and they were both
challenging and fun. Then, there is the Legend vs Hero system,
described in this image. Just, a lot of depth for a fighting game,
story wise.

Once the main game is complete, You are given free reign to walk
around and engage people in the beautifully rendered 3D world. This is
where I currently am, and so I’d better get to completing it, so I can
talk about it too. I hope it doesn’t take me too too long!